Overview

This page contains just some comments that may be useful during installation or troubleshooting.

Hardware

The unit used here contained the following hardware:

Intel Core i5-4200U Processor

Intel HD Graphics 4400

8GB of RAM

500GB hybrid drive (500GB HDD + 8GB SSD).

Replacing the hard drive

Warning: this section is intended for documentation purposes only, and is not necessary to perform at all. Please be advised against opening the computer by yourself and performing operations that could damage the machine, besides making the warranty void.

The hard drive of this unit was replaced by Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB. For this purpose:

Power off and disconnect all cables.

Remove the 10 screws from the back cover of the machine.

In addition, remove the 2 screws where the back cover folds over to the other side. See Figure 1 on page 34 of the Hardware Maintenance Manual for this machine.

Double-check that all screws have been removed (12 in total).

Pull the back cover gently, until the two plastic latches inside it are released.

Unscrew the hard drive, but before pulling it out move away some very thin wires that may be placed over it. Do this very gently and carefully.

Insert the new drive and screw it, while rearranging the thin wires very gently.

Put the cover back on, and press it a little bit so that the plastic latches will lock. Then put the 12 screws back on their places. Use sufficient, but not too much torque.

Installation

The best way to ensure that Arch Linux is correctly installed is to follow the Beginners Guide step by step.

Preparing the installation medium

Use another machine to download the latest image from the Download page and burn the ISO image into a USB stick by following the instructions in USB Installation Media.

BIOS setup

Before booting with the USB stick, enter the BIOS in order to prepare the machine for the new OS. For that purpose, press the small button on the side panel next to the HDMI port. A boot menu will appear. Select "BIOS Setup", and then:

In the "Security" menu, disable "Secure Boot" (although Arch Linux can be configured to work with secure boot, this will probably spare you a few issues during installation).

In the "Boot" menu, leave "Boot Mode" set to "UEFI", and "USB Boot" enabled.

In the "Exit" menu, set "OS Optimized Defaults" to "Other OS". Exit by saving changes.

Disk partitions

Use cgdisk to create the disk partitions, as explained in the Beginners Guide.

If the machine will be running Arch Linux only, then:

Create a first partition of 512MB (specify size: 512M) for UEFI. The partition should be of type ef00.

Create a second partition that takes up all of the remaining disk space. The partition should be of type 8300.

There is no need for a separate swap partition. Instead, create a swap file as explained in Swap.

Touchpad

This will make sure that the touchpad works correctly and will also provide two-finger scrolling.

Desktop environment

Despite general criticism, GNOME 3 is an excellent choice. It can be installed smoothly (see GNOME) and provides a very productive work environment.

The Windows key takes you to the dashboard, where you can type to search for applications and use scrolling to move across workspaces. You can also tile windows on the screen easily, either by moving them to an edge of the screen or by using a combination of the Windows key with an arrow key.

Troubleshooting

Use of headphones

If you use headphones often and you shutdown the machine with the headphones plugged in, it may happen that in the next reboots the sound is directed to the headphones by default, even though the headphones are not plugged in.